Robert Thorp

This article presents a study of how Swedish pre-service history teachers narrated their nation's past. Previous research on national history education has generally focused on the treatment of conflicts in national history and what challenges that poses for history education. The present study seeks to complement and broaden this research through its focus on a country where national history is generally perceived as uncontroversial and the debate on national history is generally characterised by consensus, and on what strategies future history teachers use when recounting the national history of Sweden. Using a qualitative approach, we asked our respondents to "Tell us the history of Sweden in your own words" in writing. The study finds that the vast majority of the respondents approach their national history in a way that reinforces a traditional view of Swedish national history. These narratives are generally presented in a way that does not engage with or show how perspective and position affects our rendering of history, which has often been regarded as problematic in history educational research. At the same time, these results also show that our respondents are well familiar with the dominant way of perceiving the Swedish past, something that could also be argued to be valuable in history education, depending on how we choose to approach national history. Kontroversiellt okontroversiellt? Om svenska historielärarstudenters relation till deras nationella förflutna Sammandrag Artikeln presenterar en studie av hur svenska historielärarstudenter skildrade Sveriges historia. Tidigare forskning om nationell historieundervisning har främst närmat sig ämnet från ett konfliktperspektiv och undersökt vilka utmaningar detta innebär för historieundervisningen. Föreliggande studie söker att komplementera tidigare forskning genom att fokusera på ett land vars nationella historia generellt uppfattas som okontro-versiell och där debatten om den nationella historieskrivningen i stor utsträckning präglas av konsensus, samt på vilka strategier historielärarstudenter använder när de skildrar Sveriges historia. Genom en kvalitativ forskningsansats bad vi våra respond-enter att skriftligen"Berätta Sveriges historia med dina egna ord". Studien visar att

Historical consciousness is a popular concept in history education that has often been considered as difficult to apply in educational practice. Taking its departure in the Swedish Schools’ Inspectorate’s recent critique of how Swedish history teaching cannot contribute to a development of students’ historical consciousnesses, this article discusses how we can theoretically understand how a development historical consciousness may happen. Using the results of this discussion, it is then suggested how historical consciousness could be developed in history education.

How do two Swedish secondary school teachers relate to and make sense of history via their experiences and educational media? This article seeks to gain knowledge about history education by analyzing two teachers’ narratives of their personal experiences of the Cold War and classroom observations of the teachers in practice. The article finds that the teachers’ narrations of personal experiences and observed teaching resemble the dominant historical culture of the Cold War in Swedish education. On this basis, I will discuss the importance of the critical aware- ness of historical culture in order to further a complex understanding of history.

This article presents a study of how history education can be understood as a practice directed towards existentialisation. Through classroom observation, teacher interviews and focus group interviews with students in grade 9 in Swedish lower secondary school, a complex teaching practice is uncovered where history teachers have to deal with matters pertaining to disseminating a meaningful narrative of the past, a critical approach to these narratives and an awareness of historicity and its implications for how we approach and understand the past. These results are then discussed from the perspectives of how history education can promote existentialisation among students, and what challenges and opportunities this may present to history teachers.

This paper presents an analysis of how leading Swedish historian and history didactical researcher Klas-Göran Karlsson presents the concept of historical consciousness in some of his most recent publications and seeks to analytically deconstruct his view of the concept. The study finds that Karlsson presents definitions of the concept that may not be compatible to each other. Using this result, the paper then tries to present and argue a view of the concept that harmonises with the one presented by Karlsson.

This paper argues that popular history magazines may be a welcome complement to
other forms of historical media in history teaching. By outlining a theoretical framework that captures uses of history, the paper analyses popular history magazine articles from five European countries all dealing with the outbreak of World War I. The study finds that while the studied articles provide a rather heterogeneous view of the causes of the Great War, they can be used to discuss and analyse the importance of perspective in history, thus offering an opportunity to further a more disciplinary historical understanding.

This  article  presents  a  study  of  how  contemporary  Swedish  lower  secondary school textbooks present the emergence of the Cold War and how 10 active lower
secondary school history teachers interpreted a quo
tation that was ambiguous in relation  to  the  general  narrative  in  the  studied  Swedish  textbooks,  seeking  to
analyse textbooks both from the perspectives of content and reception. Applying a  theoretical  framework  of  uses  of  history,  the  study  finds  that  the  narratives
presented  in  the  studied  textbooks  are  what  could  be  called  traditional  in  the sense  that  they  do not  acknowledge  perspective  and representation  in  history.
While the interviewed teachers generally acknowledged that textbook narratives are  representations  of  history  and  contingent  on  perspective, few  teachers extended  this  to  include  how  their  own  views  affect their  interpretations, suggesting an intermediary  appreciation  of  the  contextual  contingency of historical narratives.

This paper presents a theoretical approach to analysing educational media using the concept of historical consciousness. The concept of historical consciousness is defined and operationalised and its relevance for analysis of historical media is discussed. One aspect of the theoretical framework proposed is then applied in an analysis of a history textbook account. The analysis finds that while the framework may be applied in analysis of textbooks, its results regarding historical consciousness are tentative and in need of further investigation from the perspective of how its users perceive and appropriate the textbook account. Still, it is argued that the framework proposed may be useful since it specifies how a historical consciousness may be manifested and what methodological approaches that can be used when analysing it.

This paper presents a theoretical analysis of the concept of historical consciousness. It argues that a focus on the epistemological problems concerning historical consciousness can be a way of constructing a theory of the concept that both incorporates the diverse perspectives that exist in research about the concept and specifies how a historical consciousness can be developed in an individual.

This article presents a study of how the concept of historical consciousness is defined, applied and justified in Swedish history didactical research. The study finds that there is a common ground for understanding what a historical consciousness can mean, but that the concept is applied in a variety of ways. It is suggested that this variation is one reason why the concept is generally believed to be difficult to define and apply, since the application of the concept influences how a historical consciousness can be interpreted. It is also suggested that the concept could be rendered more versatile by further theoretical investigation into how the concept’s definition and applications are connected.

This compilation thesis contains an introductory chapter and four original articles. The studies comprising this thesis all concern aspects of how historical culture is constituted in historical media and history teachers’ narratives and teaching. It is argued that the teaching of history is a complex matter due to an internal tension resulting from the fact that history is both a product and a process at the same time. While historical facts, and knowledge thereof, are an important aspect of history, history is also a product of careful interpretation and reconstruction. This study analyses and discusses how history is constituted in history textbooks and popular history magazines, i.e. two common historical media, and in teachers’ narratives and teaching of history.

The study finds that the historical media studied generally tend to present history as void of perspective, interpretation and representation, suggesting this to be the culturally warranted form of historical exposition. Moreover, the teachers studied also tend to approach history as if it were not contingent on interpretation and reconstruction. These results indicate that the history disseminated in historical media and history classrooms presents history in a factual way and disregards the procedural aspects of history.

Applying the history didactical concepts of historical consciousness, historical culture and uses of history, this thesis argues that an essential aspect of historical understanding is an appreciation of the contextual contingency that characterises history. All history is conceived within a particular context that is pertinent to why and how a certain version of history is constructed. Furthermore, all history is also received within a particular context by people with particular preconceptions of history that are contextually contingent, in the sense that they are situated in a certain historical culture. Readers of historical media are members of societies and are thus affected by how history is perceived and discussed in these contexts. This thesis argues that an awareness of these aspects of history is an important factor for furthering a complex understanding of history that encompasses the tension highlighted above.